Ball Aerospace Awarded Stalker Contract to Protect U.S. Navy Ships

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has been awarded a $23.9 million dollar firm-fixed-price contract for the Stalker long-range electro-optical infrared laser sensor system (SLREOSS) under a contract to the NATO Seasparrow Project Office. The contract includes $10 million in options for additional work.

The contract effort includes Stalker transition to production of the current Stalker developmental prototype design and subsequent fabrication, test and installation of production assets. This effort includes both the Stalker director mount (DM) and the independent mount (IM) configuration (which can be deployed on ships not having the Seasparrow missile system). Options include spare system components, field support, and sustaining engineering.

The Stalker system will significantly enhance the Navy's ability to detect, classify, identify and determine hostile intent of potential threats to its ships. This includes characterizing the intent of small boats and other surface contacts to give ships additional time to respond. Ball's support to the NATO Seasparrow Project Office spans more than four decades and is the longest continuously running project at Ball Aerospace.

"Stalker provides an important capability to the NATO Seasparrow missile system," said Rob Freedman, vice president and general manager for Ball's Tactical Solutions business unit. "Ball's improved technology and independent mount application will provide increased ship self-defense capability across more of the U.S. Naval fleet – providing protection against new threats at sea."

"Navy Syscom, Fleet headquarters and Ball Aerospace cooperative efforts have filled an urgent need for long range electro-optics on large deck ships," according to Blair Thurmond, Stalker lead engineer in the NATO Seasparrow Project Office. "The fast-lane approach to development and fleet operational test/evaluation under real conditions has resulted in best value to the Navy."

Ball's three (3) Experimental and eight (8) Developmental LREOSS prototypes are based on Ball's original Stalker sensor system, currently installed on multiple ships within the Navy's fleet. Since 2008, these sensor systems have demonstrated outstanding reliability, having logged more than 150,000 hours of service for more than 25 operational deployments.

Ball Aerospace has more than 40 years of experience designing and producing robust military sensors, providing a variety of full MIL-Spec and derivative EO systems available to meet military, paramilitary, and other specialized mission requirements.